Girls in the Middle East are often exposed to serious violations of their rights as set out in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child; these violations are particularly evident in the field of gender-based sexual discrimination and violence. The project described in this article attempts to produce a situation analysis of the exposure to sexual violence of girls aged 12-18 in three countries: Lebanon, The Occupied Palestinian Territories (the OPT) and Yemen. The article focuses on three particular types of gender-based sexual violence against teenage girls, namely honour violence, early marriages, and sexual abuse. The methods applied in the research were Focus Groups Discussions (FGDs) with about 8-12 participants in each FGD. In addition to the FGDs, life stories were also collected. The project emphasised the experiences and opinions of girls regarding the three types of sexual violence listed above. 384 teenagers participated in FGDs to express their views and experiences on sexual violence and more than thirty life stories were collected. The article explores how honour violence, early marriages, and sexual abuse are violations of the CRC and analyses the particular cultural mechanisms that underlie this gender-based sexual violence in the Middle East.

As part of the project of postcolonial national modernization, the United Arab Emirates has seen the transformation of significant areas of the country’s desert environment into green landscapes, with enormous resources devoted to agricultural development, park landscaping and nature reserves. In addition, recent years have also seen the creation of a number of social institutions dealing with environmental issues. This paper critically considers this dual ‘greening of the emirates’. Analysing the material, cultural and social construction of this green nature, I argue that it must be seen in the context of a shift from a premodern to a modern relationship to nature. However, whilst in part this has meant the use of oil money to import what are seen as Western environmental technologies and ideas, it has also involved the construction of a distinctive Emirati form of modern nature. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this represents a case of the ‘glocal’ geographies of ecological modernization.

This study aimed to explore how sex education in special schools in Sweden is influenced and challenged by the multicultural aspects of modern society. In particular, it sought to explore professionalls' experiences of sex education and of honour-related experiences among young people with intellectual disabilities. Data from five individual interviews and one focus groups with four professionals were thematically analysed using sexual scripts as a theoretical framework. The results reveal an ambivalent honour-related script geared toward pupils with intellectual disabilities from cultural backgrounds differing from those of the Swedish mainstream. The provision of sex education, including information about honour-related experiences, is especially important because of these young people's vulnerability; however, addressing the subject effectively is sensitive and complicated. Colleagues with different cultural backgrounds can act as 'culture bridges' for professionals who lack strategies, methods and materials. Increasing professionals' prerequisite qualifications (e.g. further education, supervision) and adopting autonomy-promoted conduct can empower pupils with intellectual disability to exercise autonomy over their sexuality outside their immediate cultural context. ARTICLE HISTORY

The use of validated instruments and questionnaires on abuse is of great importance to evaluate and compare the prevalence in different populations worldwide. However, most of the questionnaires available and published are in English. For example, the NorVold Abuse Questionnaire (NorAQ) instrument which was used for the Bidens study in six European countries. A substantial proportion of the pregnant population in the catchment area of the clinical site in Sweden is Arabic-speaking women. As abuse and violence against women is a global concern, it is important to translate these questionnaires to other languages. This process is not just merely a matter of finding a correlating word but also needs to be validated for content and consider the wording in a linguistic and cultural context. This article gives an account of the translation and content validity process and its challenges and pitfalls from Swedish and English into the Arabic language version.

IntroductionThis study deals with the process of change from industrial to recreational land use on a 60 ha piece of land. The site called Lake Arrie is situated 12 km southeast of Malmö in southernSweden (see Fig. 1). The lake, covering more than a third of the area, has originated from an abandoned gravel quarry in the midst of an agricultural landscape. It is argued that the case study of Arrie illustrates several general aspects of contemporary changes of land use in the contested city fringe. In this paper, we will put emphasis on conflicting interests, construction of nature and outdoor recreation, and on pluralism as a moral imperative. However, as the research project runs parallel in time with the planning and development process of the site,there is yet no final design of the area to be evaluated. The objective of this paper is to explore how complex social and political planning processes interact with changing and ephemeral views of nature and its physical manifestations in the landscape. Although the area itself is rather small and still in a transitional state, it provides significant examples of more general contemporary trends regarding landscaping in the city fringe. Results and knowledge produced in this research project are of a more general character, and are not primarily aiming at solving management issues in Arrie. Our study approaches the process from a human ecological point of view, looking at three 'levels of reality': the person, the society and the biophysical environment (Steiner, 1993, p. 56). None of those three take precedence over the other, but they are equally important to the multidisciplinary understanding of the process. Departing from this so-called 'human ecological triangle', we set out to identify and discuss the three levels, looking at the renegotiation of nature in the post-industrial society. The three levels can also be interpreted as constructions in three dimensions (Ouis, 2002): the mental, social and material dimensions.This differs from the social constructivist approach that tends to ignore the material reality (for a critique of such an approach, see Hacking (1999)). In this case, nature is constructed in the most physical of meanings: areas of wasteland are to be re-designed into nature for outdoor recreation. The new design, however, is ruled by contested ideals, social tensions and power relations, and those conflicts are in focus of our investigation.In this paper, we present a short background to the area and the current situation in Lake Arrie, setting out to capture the tendencies of the contemporary construction of nature for outdoor recreation. We will then move on to discuss the salutogenic (health promoting) aspects of outdoor recreation, and how these can be understood in the landscape of LakeArrie. We will further discuss the post-modern ideal of diversity as opposed to modernity's ideals of monoculture and universalism. Post-modernity cherishes diversity both in nature and culture. These ideals apply both to the planning process and to result...

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Today’s multicultural society is characterized by contradictory sexual norms that may have consequences for youths with intellectual disabilities’ possibilities of choosing a partner and expressing their sexuality. However, the body of knowledge concerning the area of youths with intellectual disabilities is limited. This study aims to examine professionals’ views on honor-related experiences among youths with intellectual disabilities. The data consists of nine qualitative interviews with professionals in special schools (personal assistants and teachers). In addition, 11 professionals were included at pre-meetings while designing the study. A thematic analysis was conducted while using sexual script as a theoretical framework. The results are presented in the following themes: (1) The professionals’ perceptions of the young people’s abilities to deal with honor-related experiences; (2) The professionals’ opinions of the existence of honor-related experiences among youth with intellectual disabilities; and (3) Descriptions of the professionals’ conduct toward the youths with intellectual disabilities concerning honor-related experiences. The analysis shows an honor script geared towards youths with intellectual disabilities, which can be described as a continuum between care and control connected to cultural sexual norms and to the disability. The families’ strive for a so-called normality seem to be an important factor in understanding for example arranged marriages among youths with ID. To meet the needs of these youths, the professionals require tools to navigate between care and control in this complicated arena of contradictory sexual and cultural norms.

Finns det en reell kulturkonflikt mellan islam och västvärlden? I följande artikel hävdas att konflikten gör sig synlig på ett område: i synen på sexualitet. Vad säger den islamiska  sexualmoralen egentligen och vilka konflikter kan den bidra till i en sexualliberal kontext? Kan värderingsskillnader i fråga om sex ge upphov till en specifik social problematik?